Whenever the subject of Easter Parade comes up (which is more often than I’d ever have suspected), I send people to an old link that I fear will some day disappear entirely. Thus, I’ll produce here the excerpt from Jason Linkin’s excellent and long-gone live blog of the Sunday news shows, a joyous if often troubling snarkfest analysis and head-slapping of the finest degree. At the original post, you have to scroll through the reviews of FOX News Sunday, Jake Tapper’s This Week, to get there, along with a hefty peppering of ads. Plus, the nice screenshots from the movie are no longer part of the the post.

HOWEVER, for posterity and the ability to link to just the liveblog of this most excellent, silly, and memorable movie, I’ve excerpted just the movie part, complete with references to 2010-era political news.

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

By Jason Linkins

Jun 4, 2010, 05:12 AM EDT|Updated Dec 6, 2017

TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES presents EASTER PARADE

And now, in the spirit of recent holidays, I think that I shall focus this week’s contemporary politics through the prism of the Fred Astaire/Judy Garland classic, Easter Parade. This is because this liveblog is essentially a lawless, rogue state, and I am feeling oddly frisky and because I promised my wife I’d TiVo it for her, because she loves it, and that means my TiVo cannot get MEET THE PRESS today, too bad for America!

EASTER PARADE, which documents some weird bygone traditions like bursting into spontaeous songs and walking around in public wearing stupid looking hats, for Jesus. Fred Astaire opens the movie shopping for hats, and you watch a bunch of ladies stroll out from a back room wearing them, which indicates that customer service used to actually MEAN SOMETHING. My wife confesses that it always upsets her when he chooses the boring white hat over the obviously superior yellow one.

Then Fred Astaire walks into some other store and has the sort of uncomfortable encounter with a small boy that is landing the Vatican in such a mess this Easter. But no worries, little boy! He just wants to take your bunny away from you! So he stages another elaborate musical number, filled with LIES about how “drums take the melody.” “NO THEY DON’T!” my wife says! STOP LYING TO THE CHILDREN, FRED ASTAIRE.

Seriously, where is this child’s mother, to put a stop to this? Where is the shopkeeper to tell Fred Astaire to stop making a scene? Anyway, he totally STEALS THE BUNNY. This is why children always HATED Fred Astaire.

AHH BUT ALL THOSE PRESENTS ARE FOR NAUGHT! Because Anne Miller is getting all mad shirty about wanting to stop doing a show with Fred Astaire, and do her own thing. But Astaire complains “It only happens when I dance with you!” By which he means, only Ann Miller can help Astaire with his erectile dysfunction. But for Ann Miller, it “only happens” when Peter Lawford brings her a tiny dog, to go with her beige suit!

Anyway, “it must sound terribly selfish of” her — because it is TOTALLY SELFISH — but Ann Miller has signed a bunch of contracts to do a new show! But she’s already signed contracts to keep dancing with Fred Astaire, and helping him with his boners? HA HA, only Fred Astaire signed those contracts, so BURN! Anyway, that’s how Ann Miller came to run the Federal Reserve, BUT THAT’S ANOTHER MUSICAL.

So Astaire and Lawford runs out to a bar, to get they dranksippin’ on and smoke cigarettes in privately owned businesses, just like they did back in Christopher Hitchens day! Astaire bets that he can take “any one of” the terrible dancing grisl in the terrible dancing show and replace Anne Murray. He goes ahead and uses the show as his own special slave market, and after about four seconds of consideration, selects Judy Garland, for some reason!

Luckily, Judy Garland, after tearing up Fred Astaire’s business card, realizes that she should go his terrible show, because it pays more than the terrible show she is in now. This is the sort of pressure that could lead one to doing a lot of drugs! Instead, Garland sings about how she, just like the Hutaree militia, were from Michigan.

This is not that song:

Anyway, the next day, Astaire is like, “DAMN, I GOT MAD CRUNK LAST NIGHT AND I THINK I TOLD SOME TERRIBLE SINGER TO QUIT HER TERRIBLE SINGER JOB, GAH I AM A DRUNK LOSER.” And, right on time, Judy Garland shows up and is like, “Wow, I quit my job for you! And my name is Hannah Brown.” Astaire says, “We can fix that” because, what? Is “Hannah Brown” not WASPy enough? I don’t know.

Anyway, Garland tells some sob story about not knowing her left from her right, and for some reason she’s worn a rather restirictive A-line dress to a dance rehearsal?

Astaire tells her to look at him so that it looks like she’s crazy hot for him. “CLOSER, CLOSER, MORE, MORE!” But no boner action.

Then they leave rehearsal, and it’s an Easter Parade! They used to do this on New York’s Fifth Avenue, and maybe they still do, I don’t know? Total burn though, as they see Ann Miller in the Easter Parade, walking like a Botoxed robot. Garland says she looks beautiful except for the terrible hat that my wife hates but that is a total burn on Fred Astaire since that’s the last thing he bought for her. “One year from today, you are going to put her nose out of joint,” Astaire warns, telling Garland that revenge is a dish best served in the form of girl-on-girl violence.

Later, he tells her that she’ll have to change her name to “Juanita” and become a lot hotter. So she does this thing where she walks in front of him and makes a weird face and everyone turns to look at her. Because Astaire is a shallow dickhead, he naturally assumes, “Oh, well, she is super attractive!” But really Garland just has her own thing going on that’s very charming and maybe if Fred Astaire could accept her for who she is, and stop trying to turn her into Ann Miller, he might discover some qualities in her that he likes!

They do a show, and it’s goes okay, but really, it’s boring, and he should maybe do something more interesting? Like “bondage themed lesbian simulated sex in West Hollywood?”

FUN FACT! Easter Parade is generally considered to be the “prequel” of Cloverfield, and the Cloverfield monster was patterned on the graceful movements of Ann Miller!

Astaire ends up having dinner with Ann Miller, and it is awkward because he still wants her to be in his show, and she doesn’t, and he is a jerk and she is awful, and THIS RELATIONSHIP JUST ISN’T HAPPENING, GUYS! Astaire leaves Miller at the restaurant by herself, which was once the worst thing you could do to a woman, because society did not accord them autonomy!

Oh, but now it is raining and people are looking at the rain as if they’d never seen rain before in their lives. “OH WOW IS THIS THE ‘RAIN’ I READ ABOUT IN THE NEWSPAPERS? SEEMS WET!” But Garland runs into Peter Lawford and they sort of have the “meet cute” and he buys a fruit stand umbrella to walk with her. He sings about how he is a “Fella With An Umbrella.” Way back then, it was okay to sing about totally mundane things! After all, this was an age where rain caught everyone by surprise and freaked them out utterly. The song basically does not go anything like this:

Anyway, Fred Astaire had a sort of epiphany, but it wasn’t, “OMG! I am a titanic, utter dick!” But it was sort of okay, because he realizes that Judy Garland just sort of has to be herself, and she’s at least superior to David Gregory. They sing a song about how great pianos are, and then suddently get up and dance, with Astaire asking her, “Do you know this dance?” And Garland says, “Of course, like all people in American society, I know a number of standard dances that have been passed down through oral traditions.” BUT DO WE GO TO FAR? WHEN PIANOS TRY TO BE GUITARS?

Imagine how awesome musicals would have been if the Moog synthesizer had come along fifty years sooner.

Anyway, they basically have this show about comedy dance numbers about musical instruments? There’s the piano song, and one about a violin, and “I’m so Bored With My Harpischord,” and “Dithering With My Zither,” and “I’m Just a Strumpet, A Strumpet with a Trumpet.” Also, a song about Alabama and trains. Suddenly the show isn’t so terrible! But I worry that Astaire is still too hung up on Ann Miller! And that Peter Lawford’s fondness for Judy Garland may cause some complications! And what if the Cloverfield monster ruins the Easter Parade???

Oh, snap! It turns out that Astaire didn’t count on this little show about strategically placed musical instruments would be subsumed within Ann Miller’s new show. And no one told Garland about how Astaire still carries a mad torch for Miller. COMPLICATIONS!

Anyway, Garland leaves and does the most non-committal hailing of a taxi in the history of New York City. Luckily Peter Lawford happens along, and he is driving a horrific, tacky car, and wearing a full length mink coat and he looks like an absolute git, and so it will be okay if in the end his relationship with Garland falters, because he is the John Crier of this movie. They agree to meet later.

Anyway, Astaire meets up with her and tells her that he didn’t agree to be a part of the show. Garland is all, “Whuuhh?” But Astaire assures her that she is so much better, with her nine days of professional rehearsal and training than Ann Miller, a beloved and popular performer, that Miller and Mr. Ziegfield can go eat a bag of cheddar dongs.” Then, they are like, “WOAH, I BET WE CAN PASS HEALTH CARE REFORM TOO.”

But they don’t because Peter Lawford shows up for his date with Judy Garland and it’s MAD awkward. Because now no one is helping Astaire with his erectile dysfunction. “Boy, I don’t know,” Astaire says, “I’m just so sick of all these Easter Parades.” HA THAT’S A JOKE, but remember all of this was put in motion because a guy got offended that a lady he bought a hat for didn’t want to do a dancing show with him anymore?

That’s when Dr. Christina Romer takes Astaire aside and tells him, “It’s [the recession] also an unusual one, having been caused by a financial crisis, has created a lot of fear. That’s a lot of, you know, we still have some trouble with debt and and credit availability. All of that makes it harder for us to grow. So, most of the forecasts are we’ll grow about three percent real GDP and in 2010. That’s not enough to get a lot of job growth. We’ll get positive job growth. It’ll be enough to probably bring the unemployment down a little bit. But you need faster than that to really make a dent.”

Would you concede that it [the Stimulus Bill] didn’t do as much as you thought it would have done to spark recovery?

DR. CHRISTINA ROMER: Absolutely not. I think it has done exactly what we said it would do and I think the

Well clearly it didn’t do what you said it would do which is to keep unemployment at 8 percent.

DR. CHRISTINA ROMER: Well, we had said it would do would to save or create some three and a half million jobs. It’s absolutely on track to do that. I also think it’s a big part because the reason we’ve seen, as the President’s said, we’re beginning to turn the corner. I think experts across the ideological spectrum give the Recovery Act a lot of credit for the dramatic change in the trajectory that that we have seen.

They go back to the one obnoxious restaurant that was open in New York City back then. At that restaurant, there was only one salad available, an extraordinarily overcomplicated salad with about seventeen flavors too many, that could only be explained to diners through an elaborate pantomime performance that takes longer than Peter Brook’s performance of the Mahābhārata, and which ultimately compels all but the most daft diners to not order it, because SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR DUMB SALAD.

Anyway, Peter Lawford likes Judy Garland, who likes Fred Astaire, who likes Ann Miller. We’ve all been there! All that really needs to happen is for a enterprising Ecstasy dealer to arrive in Manhattan right now and we can solve all over this, with the foursome exploring their bodies and inventing the Moog synthesizer. And also, Christina Romer would be there! But we’d be tripping such balls at that point that no one’s mellow would get harshed. And then Astaire would dance down the street, talking to his reflection in windows, all of whom would tell him, “You don’t need to see your doctor about this, no sir! Also, be careful that you don’t get caught up in this whole World War One thing that’s going to happen.”

Fred Astaire is a self-loathing, emo, idiot, so he goes to see Ann Miller’s show, which is pretty good, even though it is about going down South and getting way into voodoo? I don’t think we truly have an appreciation for how little sense everything made back then. EXCEPT HERE’S JOE LIEBERMAN:

DAVID GREGORY: Do you worry that the U.S., and the west more generally, is drifting toward war with Iran in some fashion?

SENATOR JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: Well I appreciated the president’s statement and to tell you the truth I worry more that we’re not going to do enough to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon quickly enough. I believe we’re at a turning point in history. Iran with nuclear weapons is going to mean this world will be a lot less safe then it is today. There are already threats to our safety every day. We’ve never – This is an extremist, expansionist power. There’s never been another country like this with nuclear weapons, and we’ve got to impose tough sanctions quickly. I believe Congress will adopt a tough sanctions bill soon. I hope this month of April.

Secondly, they’ve gotta be tough because frankly it’s the last chance that we’re giving Iran and ourselves not to be left with a choice of either accepting them having a nuclear weapon or taking military action. In my opinion, we need to be prepared to take military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program if they refuse to stop themselves.

Why do we have to bomb the nice kids who are getting killed in the streets, trying to not have such an insane country?

Anyway, the next morning comes and Judy Garland is crazy worried that she hasn’t heard from Fred Astaire, because he’s so depressed and sad and self-loathing! BUT SHE SHOULD HAVE JUST WAITED TWO MINUTES, because Astaire is here, and he’s just been talking to the Deus Ex Machina, who wants to put them in a show that’s just as good as all other shows, forever, and the best part is that they will be pack from tryouts in time for the Easter Parade and the Epic Battle of Ladies Who Have Been Pitted Against Each Other Unknowingly By This Insecure Man Who Doesn’t Really Understand That They Have Needs, Too!

Peter Lawford has to settle for Ann Miller, and Garland goes off to have a date with Astaire, but he just wants to rehearse and stuff, and Garland wants to be romanced! “YOU’RE NOTHING BUT A PAIR OF DANCING SHOES.” Yeah, stick it to him! He deserves this. Luckily, he knows what color Garland’s eyes are, because he checked the Wikipedia.

Garland relents, but ends up singing the Astaire-Miller bonerjuice ballad, “It Only Happens When I Dance With You,” and Astaire snaps and rushes out of the room to serially-kill fifteen prostitutes in Battery Park. Just kidding! Actually, that’s all Garland ever needed to do was sing the Magical Boner Ballad and now everything is fine! Is there going to be ANY CONFLICT AT ALL IN THIS MOVIE?

That’s when Fred Astaire comes out on stage and sings the Black Eyed Peas “Let’s Get It Started” and he changes the future! Seriously, it has this crazy slow-motion section of Fred Astaire dancing that was totally the AVATAR crap of its day, except it wasn’t a huge scam to get moviegoers to pay crazy sums of money to see crapola in 3-D. I mean, seriously, a remake of CLASH OF THE TITANS? Release the Hacken!

Anyway, horrible person Ann Miller has some spy at the show who’s there just to make her feel good about herself and how all the girls in the show are better dancers than Judy Garland. But see, the next number is “A Couple Of Swells,” a song about how high U6 unemployment rates used to not be such a big deal because poor people were totally charming with their tatty clothes and toothless grins. Anyway, the whole song basically predicts the collapse of Lehman Brothers and calls for the strict adherence to the Glass-Steagall Act.

Anyway, so, no: Judy Garland is not as good a dancer as Ann Miller, but whatevs, she’s JUDY EFFING GARLAND and she’s chastely eyeball-screwing Fred Astaire! But for whatever dumbassed reason, in their moment of triumph, Fred Astaire is like: “HEY, LET’S GO SEE MY EX-GIRLFRIEND’S SHOW?”

They go, and they get a big ovation, because they were a hit, and Ann Miller’s sycophant spy was a big ol’ liar. So Miller sets to scheming about how she can be a crazy underminer.

But first, the John Barrowman of the 1910’s come out and sings a song about these things called “magazines” which have “covers.” The number uses dancers to pose as three dimensional magazine covers, and this is where Steve Jobs got the idea for the iPad, except the part where it would be named after a feminine hygiene product — that was the idea of some marketer at Apple.

Anyway, Ann Miller’s masterplan is to drag Fred Astaire on stage with her to dance to his Secret Boner Ballad, “It Only Happens When I Dance With You.” Which he does, and Judy Garland gets all jealous, because she owns his junk now! So she bolts, because, seriously, Fred Astaire, WHAT A DICK MOVE.

Garland goes back to the terrible dive bar she used to do terrible shows at, and she sings to the bartender. The song does not go like this:

Anyway, Fred Astaire is waiting for Judy Garland when she gets back to her hotel room (why doesn’t she have her own New York City apartment, by the way?) and she gets mad at him for dancing with Ann Miller and accusing him of still being in love with her, but he tells her through the door that he loves her, and they can surely build a relationship on his convoluted, Easter-themed revenge plan!

He says he’ll stand there all night, but then the other Deus Ex Machina, in the form of a cop, makes him leave, but he does it VERY QUIETLY. For some reason, Astaire isn’t smart enough to yell, “Judy Garland! A cop is making me leave, so when you open the door, I won’t be standing here! Don’t misconstrue this as a sign that I do not care about you and have reneged on my promise to stand here all night! This is all about the very stringent law and order that New York City is known for.” He doesn’t do this, because he is dumb.

The next day, she is despondent, but Peter Lawford come by and they re-enact the final scene from Pretty In Pink, where he says, “Hey, even though I love you for you, why don’t you go make yourself pretty for the superficial dick you’ve been swanning over, and win back that toxic bag of insecurities?” Garland is like, “WHAT A GREAT IDEA,” and it’s off to the Easter Parade, where she will destroy Ann Miller, with throwing stars.

Garland gives Astaire a terrible hat, thus symbolically closing the terrible hat circle that the director — Michael Haneke I think? — started in the opening scenes. And then everyone loves her in the Easter Parade, and the movie ends, with everyone partnered with people who are bad for them, the men emasculated, the women worse off than they were before, until the Cloverfield monter comes, to eat New York City!

Okay, well, I enourage everyone to watch Anthony Quinn and Jack Palance in BARRABAS, which was the MEET THE PRESS of it’s day. Have a happy Easter, and Passover! We’ll leave you today with a “Beaster Parade” — a celebration of mid-career Bob Mould music.

Thanks for letting me totally abuse my platform! It will probably happen again, sorry. Have a glorious week!